Defense Working Capital Fund: Improvements Needed for Managing the Backlog of Funded Work

United States. General Accounting Office.

United States. General Accounting Office.

关键词: Government accountability -- United States.;    auditing and financial management;    defense working capital fund;    letter report;   

RP-ID  :  GAO-01-559
RP-ID  :  231735

美国|英语

来源: UNT Digital Library

【 摘 要 】

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report examines the working capital fund activities for the Department of Defense (DOD). GAO (1) identifies potential changes in current management processes or policies that, if made, would result in a more efficient operation and (2) evaluates various aspects of the DOD policy that allow Defense Working Capital Fund activities to carry over a 3-month level of work from one fiscal year to the next. GAO found that DOD lacks a sound analytical basis for its current 3-month carryover standard. DOD established a 3-month carryover standard for most working capital fund activity groups, although it has not done the analysis necessary to support the 3-month standard. Without a validation process, neither DOD nor congressional decisionmakers can be sure that the 3-month standard is providing activity groups with reasonable amounts of carryover to ensure a smooth transition from one fiscal year to the next or whether the carryover is excessive. In addition, carryover information currently reported under the 3-month standard is not comparable between services and is misleading to DOD and congressional decisionmakers. Specifically, results can differ markedly because the military services use different methods to calculate the number of months of carryover. Further complicating the congressional budget review of carryovers is that some activity groups have underestimated their budgeted carryover year after year, thereby providing decisionmakers with misleading year-end carryover information and resulting in more funding being provided than was intended. GAO also reviewed the potential financial impact of reducing the amount of fiscal year-end carryover permitted by DOD policy. GAO's analysis showed that if a 30-day, 60-day or 75-day carryover policy had been in effect during the fiscal year 2001 budget review process, the amount of budgeted customer orders could have been reduced by about $2.9 billion, $1.6 billion, or $1.0 billion, respectively."